HIPER HMC-2K53A-A3 AMD Socket AM2 Mini / Booksize Barebone System

Pros: Very nice small form factor. Quiet (but not silent) Reasonably capable motherboard (not a heavy-duty gaming system).

Runs cool with AMD X2 5000 and recommended (Hiper) heatsink.

Graphics performance is OK. Runs Vista Aero capably. Graphics scores in the high 3's.

Wifi built in (though I have only run this wired).

Biggest pro for me is sleek looks, uniquely small and "at the TV" form factor. These overcome pretty much any cons. Overall VERY pleased with purchase.

Cons: Fan connector for mini-fan under HDD was too short to reach any fan connector on the MB. Had to buy a fan lead extension - not a biggie, but a shame. Screws for mini-fan under HDD are too long (going out the bottom of the case) and scratch up anthing you place this on really badly.

Very tight inside.

South bridge runs hot, and make-shift fan they built in is the noisiest in the box.

Use of memory slot for VFD PCB is a shame.

Lack of standard cutout in back is a shame, or I could upgrade the mobo to something even better.

Motherboard graphics does not meet standards required by most PC Blu-Ray software

Other Thoughts: I bought this to make a DVD player form factor Blu-Ray PC to have at my TV. Small, nice to look at and quiet were key considerations. It is/was the best form factor I have been able to find for this.

Built it with 1TB WD EACS drive, Panasonic Blu-Ray drive (which was WAY expensive), 2GB ram, AMD X2 5000

The graphics on the Mobo does not meet most minimum requirements for software. Bought Corel PowerDVD which worked OK for a while (2 weeks) then died permanently when it said it was updating the device keys. It may have bricked the Blu-Ray capability of my eight hundred dollar Blu-Ray drive, but I have not bought a competing software product to test it.

Pros: At first I was very impressed with the design and styling of the case. It is slime and matches up perfectly with other Home Theatre components. Features such as the media controls on the front, VFD display and built in Wi-Fi are great.

Cons: The computer rarely stayed booted for longer than 30 minutes at a time due to heating issues. I was using a AMD 64 X2 4200+ CPU rated at 65w thermal output and purchased the recommended HIPER CPU Heat Sink rated up to 105w thermal output CPUs. I though it may have been the case placement and moved it out of the component stack into a wide open space and still had heat issues. HIPER support could offer no suggestion or help. The mothernboard manufacturer also stopped providing BIOS and driver support. The front of the case was also cheaply made (snap on plastic front panel) and quickly broke after moving/opening the case several times.

Other Thoughts: In the end I stripped the motherboard out for use in a full size PC tower and scrapped the rest of the case. The product as it was sold by HIPER eventually became more hassle than it was worth. I purchased a new case with fanless power supply unit and Micro-ITX motherboard (Mobile on Desktop setup) to avoid and future heat issues.

Pros: Follow-up to review of 10/30/07. Finally managed to obtain Hiper-branded heatsink/fan and generic PCI riser. Installed Vista and system worked beautifully, with a few quirks (see below).

Excellent output to my (aging) rear-projection TV at 1080i. Sound is nice, but wish it had optical.

Kids love the control buttons on the unit for pausing music, shows, etc. when they lose the remote.

Quieter than my last Media Center build.

Cons: VFD quirky. Don't know if it's a Vista thing (maybe they work well in XP?) It gets behind -- When I'm playing music, I'll look 30 mins into a playlist and see that the VFD is showing a song that played 5 minutes earlier. No way to catch it up short of a reboot. Hopefully a driver update will address this, as the VFD is one of the major selling points of this machine (to me)

As others have pointed out, the parts are somewhat proprietary, which worries me a little bit, but I've already had some success with replacements (see below).

Other Thoughts: Power surge a few weeks ago blew something out on the motherboard (machine started smoking, big charred spot on the board near the CPU). Didn't want to deal with the hassle of warranty exchange through an overseas company so I just bought a MiniATX board that looked like it had everything I needed.

Port openings in the back are specific to the MSI board that comes with the machine, so I had to dremel out an opening to accept the backplate that came with the new motherboard. Plugged everything back in, booted it up, waited for Vista to install some new drivers, and I was back up and running. Quieter than it was before, even. And it doesn't seem to get as hot.

I've even got optical sound now! Woohoo! :)

So, yeah, Some of the stuff in the VFD/Card reader might be hard to replace, but a lot of it is off-the-shelf if you're willing to mod a little to make it work.

Overall, I'm happy with the purchase, though there have been times I've wondered.

Pros: Really Slim Design, Nice fit (black) in front of my tv, new egg has a good combo with this as well, front panel rocks, nice placement of I/o panel.

Cons: Cheap front I/O panel, if it breaks I don't know where you can get it replaced. doesn't come with slim slot load dvd, no riser card, no heat sink.

Other Thoughts: I just don't know where to get a replacement parts if it ever one of its components breaks down. other than thing that, this is a really nice case for your home living room.

Pros: The size and look is awesome.
Vista ready!
The function buttons are great.
Includes memory card reader - sweet!

Cons: -The newegg version doesn't include the VFD or Wifi shown on the manufacturers site.
-Newegg doesn't carry a compatible DVD/CD or riser card.
-Built in hard drive fan doesn't connect to mother board.

Other Thoughts: All the cons above can be overcome - if newegg fixed them, this would be the perfect media center.

Pros: Great looking living-room PC will be right at home in an A/V rack. Haven't got it put together yet (see below), so can't rate actual performance.

It's very slim and slick-looking!

Cons: Doesn't come with a PCI riser, so will not accept expansion cards as-is. I bought it for a Media Center system and need to put a tuner card in, but can't until I can get a riser (which NewEgg is currently out of).

Even with a riser will only support a single PCI card.

Requires (but doesn't include) slim slot-load DVD drive. (I knew I would have to buy this separately. It would be nice if NewEgg carried one, but I've had to order elsewhere).

Requires (but doesn't come with) a low-profile CPU fan. Any barebones I've bought that required non-standard cooling has come with it, so I expected the same here.

Only supports a single HDD -- a trade-off for the extremely slim profile.

Other Thoughts: I'm sure it will be a nice system, but before you buy be aware that you'll need to put quite a bit more money into it. At the very least, you'll need a slim slot optical drive and a low-profile fan, and if you want TV capabilities you'll need a PCI riser that is hard to find.